I want to start writing out all the memories I have. This way I can go back and relive them if I ever forget them again. However, it is the day-to-day life that I want to go back and read about, not just one ones that are permanently fixed into my memory bank.
Its like in the kid movie “Inside Out” when the memory workers start removing all the old memories to make way for new ones. It seems my memory workers destroy more memories than they keep. Or maybe my long-term memory shelves aren’t as big as normal people.
I’m going to see if playing Memory Bingo will help. Maybe the association to one memory, will trigger another.
I remember a family beach trip at the Purple Moon at Lincoln City, Oregon. My family was staying in one side of the inn, and my Aunt, Uncle, cousins, and grandparents were staying in the other side of the inn. My dad had made special menus for us to pass out to everyone in the morning, and us four kids look everyone’s order, and my dad was the chef for the morning.
I remember another beach trip where I got a bike (not sure if was my first) and the parking lot was a circle, with a little slope. My grandma and step-mom were on roller blades and I was learning how to ride a bike.
I remember while camping one year at Indian Henry’s Campground, my family was camped in C7, which was the perfect spot to camp. It was on the bottom of a slop in a loop. We had our bikes, and were riding them around the loop. On the way down, I didn’t turn fast enough and ended up crashing my bike into a large tree by my Aunt and Uncle’s trailer. I bounced off the bike seat, landed on the bar under the seat, and had wrapped my arms around the tree. I was scrapped up pretty bad. I had to walk in the trailer sideways because my arms were hurting. I didn’t ride a bike for a long time after this.
I remember when I relearned how to ride a bike. I was at my friend, Hannah Yoon’s house and we were playing in her front yard / driveway. She lived on a flag-lot just like we did but on the other side of a busy street. It was there that I got the courage to get back on a bike and start riding again. However, it has been years since I’ve been on a bike. And I don’t like going fast, or down hill, for the fear of falling or crashing.
I have another memory of being at Hannah Yoon’s house. It was her birthday and she had invited me to her party. I was trilled. It was my mom’s weekend, so she dropped me off. During the party time, it started to flurry outside as her birthday is in Winter. 45 minutes after the flurries started, my mom picked me up and took me home. She said it was freezing, sticking and was getting slick out. So instead of letting me stay for the party, I was pulled out early. I mean sure, the weather got bad eventually, but did she really need to pick me up so damn early? Hannah’s party eventually turned into a slumber party because the snow eventually stuck to the ground.
Questions by Daddy: What is the earth flat? (joke, we know it’s round) Why can’t a Swallow carry a coconut? What are Spiderman’s webs made out of?
Questions by Kid 1: When did Tony Stark’s dad die? Who was the first man to die? What is a famous name? What was the first color of a Lego brick? When was Gold discovered? When did people first become Pirates? When did they make school? When did they first make the movie BeetleJuice? Is BeetleJuice real?
Questions by Kid 2: What are there too many pizzas? When did Lego Batman come out? When was Pikachu fat? When did they make Pokemon? When were the ducks fat? When did Iron Man get discovered as human?
My world is different today then it was yesterday. Thought it has really stayed the same. I have seen my husband more this week alone, than the previous months combined. I feel cramped in my little home with now 4 bodies in it. Normally I am able to take my time in the morning or have some alone time at night before the kids wake up / go to bed. But now there is an extra body in the house. And now there is no where to go.
We took the boys on a little road trip yesterday. They were excited to get out of the house, but were complaining because we didn’t really go anywhere. We played “left, right, straight”. They picked a few times on directions, but then they got tired and bored, and one of them fell asleep. It sucks not being able to go anywhere or do anything with them. And it sucks that as kids of the 80’s / 90’s where technology wasn’t overtaking our lives, we can’t as adults figure out how to come together as a family and have fun without going anywhere.
At this moment my kids are on two different screens. I tell you, at the end of all this, my kids will have mastered all the one player video games we go. This is what they do. Play a little video game, watch a little YouTube (nothing horrible, and almost always the same videos over and over again), do a little homework. All screen time for them halts at one time, and they don’t get to pick for the rest of the day. That doesn’t meant the TV goes off, just that mom and dad have control over what it is playing, or if it is on at all.
I’m finding that we all congregate in one room in the house. And this room is so small. It can hardly fit all 4 of us in the room with enough breathing space. We need to move, but we can’t move (mostly because of me). Go figure, I did some stupid stuff with credit cards when I was younger, and because of one of them taking me to court, we can’t move until I get this stupid shit paid off. Oh and guess what, because I was fired for a really good paying job, I can’t make the damn payments anymore. And the fact that he is on a 30-day leave from work, we only get to pay the bills that we can afford to pay. No debts, just active accounts. Though, when one account is finally paid off in November, we can start putting money towards this stupid court account. I called them in March when I got fired, and let them know the situation, and they said they could postpone my payment for a month, but that means that the next month would be a double payment. Wait, what? That doesn’t make since, just push my payment out past the time frame of the schedule, not double up my next payment. Hello?! I can’t pay you now at the regular amount, what makes you think I can pay you double next month?
And then, Covid hit. Which is a great excuse of not paying this stupid debt. So I called them again, when my next payment was due (the double amount one) and told them, that yes I was working again, but because of Covid, I was off for a month, and can’t afford to pay this debt right now. They said they would put a hold on the account so that they don’t reach out to me to collect payment, and will not report me as being late on payments. However, interest is still adding up on the account. Ok, what? They won’t come after me for payment, but interest is still adding up on the account? This is how the balance got so high to begin with. This stupid credit card company took me to court like 7 years ago, I forgot about it, and the interest has been piling up ever since.
The lessons you learn when you are younger. This is why I don’t have credit cards anymore. Sure I may take out a loan to pay for car repairs when I need to, but I will NEVER have a credit card again. If I can’t pay for what I need now, then I wait. And wait. And wait until I can afford it. Otherwise, I go without. I go without a lot of things. But then again, I should go without a lot of things, because we have kids that need things more than we do.
There are many events in my past that I relive over and over again, wondering if I made the right choice at the time. And I really wish I could read about these choices, but I can’t anymore. I used to journal a ton, from 1997 on. There were a lot of events and things I wrote about that I would love to read again. Mostly because my memory is shit, and there are blocks of events / times that I don’t remember. Ever come across one of those moments that you wish you could take back, because as soon as you did it, you knew you were going to regret yet? Yep, I think the worst one for me what when I BURNED all my journal entries. All of them. I had paper copies, and then overtime I typed all my entries up and sorted them in order. Sometimes I would write things out of time line order, and typing them up allowed me to get my history in order. But I was with someone at the time that didn’t think I should focus on my past, and wanted to know that I was committed to our future together. So he told me to show him that I was committed to him by BURNING my past. What a moron I was. How stupid was I to believe that by burning my history, I was sealing my future with him. Yeah, I don’t remember where in our 3.5 year relationship this happened, but in the end I recognized the signs of an emotionally abusive person. And I got out of that relationship.
Thinking about past relationships are hard for me. When I’m with someone I’m devoted. I’m there. I’m in the moment. But then it ends, and those feelings they have to go somewhere.
I remember my first boyfriend and how we met. It was in a corn maze, we went with mutual friends one night. It was my first time meeting him, and we ended up separated from the others in our group, and we got lost in the maze together. We weren’t really trying to get out, just talking and lost in what each other was saying, for an hour. After that, we had a lots of pool parties at his house, and hung out with friends together. He went to a different high school than I did, and he ran track. He asked me to watch his track meet in the fall, and I asked him to my winder formal. My grandmother made my dress, and I was all flustered. I was a sophomore, just turned 16, and had never kissed anybody at this point. We went to formal together, and during a slow song, he asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend. I said yes. My dad picked us up after the formal ended and drove him home. I walked him up to his door. We hugged and he leaned in to kiss my cheek and apparently I leaned the wrong way and he landed on my lips instead. It wasn’t what he was going for, but that was my first kiss. We had a wonderful year together. During the summer I was almost always at his house with friends. We went camping together with my family.
My parents loved him. My family loved him. He was the best first boyfriend that I could have had. And I was shit to him at the end. I broke his heart. I mean, we were teenagers, and even though I thought we could have been together forever, we went to different schools and I didn’t drive at that point. It made things hard. Also, social media wasn’t around then, and we could only talk on the phone for so long. But one day … there was an another guy that paid attention to me at school. At my school. We ended up spending a little bit of time together. And one night, we took a walk at night, and he kissed me. While I was still with my first boyfriend. That kiss sealed my fate with my first boyfriend. I was at my mom’s house. We were going out to dinner for our first anniversary (which was postponed from the actual date, because he didn’t have enough saved up). I wore a blue silk dress with large white flowers on it. I couldn’t wear a bra with the dress because the back tied together, and it was mid-thigh short. Yep, the things I remember. And it was freezing, our anniversary was in December, but the date was in very early January because he was saving up money for this. He was driving at this point, so he picked me up in his own car, and had me close my eyes. He wanted it be a surprise. However, I wasn’t really in the mood. I was trying to be nice and breakup with him, so I wasn’t really in the mood to be celebrating our year together. So I closed my eyes, however, because I know the roads so well, I knew as soon as we got into the parking lot where we were. He didn’t like that I knew, so we went somewhere else. It was a nice place, but again, I was nervous because I was trying to be honest with him. Honesty has always been something that I put in the fore-front of my relationships. Anyway, over dessert, I told him that I kissed someone else. And I broke him. It wouldn’t be the first time I broke someone.
He drove me back to my moms house. I was still in shock, because I didn’t want to hurt him, but I also didn’t feel like I should be with him because I had feelings for someone else. I was numb. I cried on a bed for a while. And that was the last time I wore that dress. I knew I did something stupid. We could have just worked through the stupid kiss, but now. I had to go and break his heart. My parents still loved him though. Over the years and other boys I dated, they kept telling me that he could take care of them when they got older.
The problem with relationships like this one, is that they never really go away. Many, many moons later, he was finishing up his time in the army and had asked if I would like to fly down to him and keep him awake during his long ride back home. I had just graduated college, so what the hell, right? And I have no idea how it happened, but my sister got herself invited to go along as well. I think things would have been a lot different if she had not come along. I don’t remember how many days it took us to drive home, but I do know that we were delayed a day getting on the road after we got there.
We flirted a bit on the trip, though, and I’m not sure why, but I developed weirdly strong feelings for his army roommate. But that’s a different story. So we all drive home together. He drives the entire way, and my sister and I swap ridding shotgun and in the backseat every so often. We eventually make it back to our state and it is stormy weather. It had snowed while we were away, and chains were eventually required about 20 miles from our house on the freeway. He dropped my sister off, and then he took me home. I was living on my own at the time. He and I talked for a while, and eventually he asked me to be his girlfriend again. Years had pasted by now. But he still had feelings for me. He said that I was a great friend and had forgotten how I had made him feel. I was flattered. But I knew where he stood on some very important issues (marriage, kids) and I was still thinking of his roommate halfway across the states. There was a split second that I could have said yes to him, but the years in the army had changed him. I was still naive to physical touch and he wasn’t.
There were other boys that I dated between these two points in my life, but I have to really concentrate on those details. So many things happened between them, and after that point, my life has been a blur.
I swear all of our minds have broken. The stupid world has got to shit. What the hell? Where is the mental help with you need it? We live in 800sqft of space. Which means that is a kitchen, dinning room, living room, one bathroom and 2 bedrooms. One of those bedrooms is ours. The kids can’t play in the kitchen, dining room, bathroom or our bedroom. So that means that the boys can only play in 2 rooms, which is 266sqft or 33% of our house they can play in. But that doesn’t include the space that the furniture takes up. So more like 25% of the house they can play in. And what’s horrible is that we have a forest like backyard (granted not fenced) that they can play in, but they don’t like bees. And we don’t like them playing out in in the backyard without us knowing about it because of the no fence, and where we live.
And today, my husband took a 30 day leave of absence from work. His mind has broken. He needs a mental break. However, now what about my mental break? He is going to try to switch his sleeping pattern to day shift during this time as well. This way he can be awake during the day and help our kids with school work and making sure they check in with their classrooms. We will see how long this lasts. He has plans on cleaning up our house as well. Some spring cleaning is in order. He gets this way though.
I’m not sure how this is going to work. But I know it will be good for him. He needs to relax and feel like he is getting something done. We need somewhere to take the kids. This Covid world is hurting out kids. They were not meant to be by themselves. And I feel sorry for the ones that relied on school lunches because their parents aren’t able to afford food. We are lucky in that sense, but I know what it’s like not to be. I know we don’t have it as bad as others. And I know its not fair to compare our lives to others.
There have been many times where I’ve thought about my past, and the decisions I’ve made. What if I could go back and change one thing in my past? Where would be I be then? Its a distraction when I’m driving. As I have a 30/40 minute commute, I have lots of time to think. I do try to listen to podcasts on my drive to and from work. Most of the time I listen to “The Dark Side of”, “American Elections: Wicked Game”, “Serial Killers” and “Take it or Leave it”.
I don’t know how to help. How can I excel in certain areas of my life and not in others? I didn’t realize the strain that he is in until he said it. How could I be so blind? How did I not know? He wants to take an extended leave of absence from work (again). He’s done this multiple times now. And all while we’ve been together. He can tell I’m under a lot of pressure, and that our boys need help. We just can’t do it on our own. Plus with Covid around, we can’t ask anyone for help. A lot of our family is “medically compromised”, or live in another state.Of course when he told me what he was thinking of doing, I fell silent, and then asked if he thought about our financial situation.How is it that I immediately go to the money side of things, when I should be considering on his mental health? Before the world went to shit we tried to give each other time away from each other, as a mental break. This way we can be independent people for a little window of time. However, even then, I felt like it was hard to come back home.Last night we were talking about something and he brought up why he fell in love with me to begin with. Something that I may have known in the past (but I tend to forget a lot). He said that he fell in love with my independence, and other things (again I forget). But after that I said “but I’m not independent anymore, we are married”. I know what a romantic thing to say, right? Nope, wrong. I really didn’t mean it the way it sounded, because to me it sounded like I didn’t want to be married anymore. And that wasn’t it. Just that when you get married, you lose your independence, you are now dependent on that person in your life.I can’t believe how horribly I treat him sometimes. I look around the house, and realize I haven’t done anything to clean it up. That doing an act of service is one of the love languages, and would show him that I appreciate him. We actually took a test awhile ago that showed us what our “love languages” are. My last language was “words of affirmation” and my first was (I think) “acts of service”. His was the opposite. He wants me to tell him how much I appreciate him. But apparently I wasn’t made to tell people my feelings. They like to bottle up and stay hidden for a long time. I may tell people surface (every day things), but deep emotional connection? That’s not really my style.So how do we show each other that we are dedicated to each other? After 11 years of being together, I’m still now sure. And what’s bad, is that I hardly see him anymore. This is due to opposite schedules. And he blames our oldest for this. Yes, he holds a lot of resentment towards our oldest. This is because of bad behavior in the past has led him to quitting a job he loved because our kids got kicked out of a daycare. I don’t like that he resents him for this. That he thinks that is was the root cause of him being unhappy. And he has told our oldest this. How do you think this makes him feel? It’s horrible to put that on a kid. Besides, I have always thought there was something wrong with that daycare.But it goes to show that we need to be diligent and dedicated to each other. This way we are on the same page with everything. That we can have separate interests in life, but hold together for each other, and our kids. We need to show them that we love and are dedicated to each other. It’s just hard to do so when most of the time we parent by ourselves. This means “single” parenting while married, and living together. We both grew up in broken homes. We both know what kind of impact that had on us growing up.I know there are things in his past that he doesn’t talk about. And there are some things in my past that I have blocked out. Actually, I had though about seeing a hypnotist to see if I could regain some of those blocked memories. But I have no idea if that would destroy the person I am. How can I be the best person I can be if I can’t remember part of my life?Needless to say, I do support the decisions he makes. Though I always tend to play devils advocate, and try to make sure he’s considering all the options before he makes a decision. I don’t know if that helps or not, but I just want to make sure he knows for sure what he is doing.He thinks that we can financially survive on my paychecks alone. I’m on a contract-to-hire site, but they haven’t made any indicate on if they actually want to hire me. I could be doing all this clean up at work, and then when I’m done, they may not need me anymore. This is what I am afraid of. With Covid, and everyone scared to be around people, I’m at least happy I’m working. However, the uncertainty of it all, makes me nervous.But I also know him well. I know that he’s been wresting with this idea of an extended leave of absence for awhile now. He only really talks about something this serious like after he has talked himself into doing it. And now he wants to know my opinion. But he doesn’t want my opinion, he wants my support. How can I show that I support him on this? When we hardly made rent when I wasn’t working for a month? We hardly had food in the house, and that was just March. And I was dependent on unemployment at the time. Luckily our rent was covered at that time, and I was able to get a new job, but in today’s world, both parents need to work. Or until one parent makes 80K on their own. But that is not possible.
Today I played with my kids. Or rather I embarrassed them. I don’t see how because nobody else was in the house but us three, but I did. I know how to make my kids laugh. I can act goofy and playful when I want to. And those moods seem far and few between regular moments in life.
This weekend, I worked myself into a giggle fit and couldn’t stop laughing for about an hour. It was so bad! I mean it was hilarious, but my stomach hurt so bad because I was laughing so hard and for so long. It all started when I was in the kitchen with my husband. He had a headache and was taking four Advil (one at a time). When he took the first one, I had a sudden chill and shook my shoulders. So when he took the second one, I felt like I had to shake my shoulders again, so I did. At first he didn’t notice what had happened and when he went to take the third one, I started to shake my shoulders again and he caught the movement in the corner of his eye. I tried so hard not to laugh and hold it in because I knew he had 1 more to go. But as soon as he raised his hand to take the last one, I couldn’t shake my shoulders without laughing. I was laughing so hard. And then he got cute and shook his shoulders. I was giggling so hard I doubled over. It wouldn’t stop. All through the day, whenever he would see me, he shook his shoulders. I think it was the most upbeat I had been a long time. I think if I hadn’t laughed so hard, I would have cried later that day.
Tears have a way of making their way out of a body, either by laughter or by crying. Since they came out when laughing, it felt like a weight had been lifted. And we also went for a walk around a nature trail as a 4 person family. Which is rare, because of opposite schedules.
My kids have mentioned that I’m grumpy all the time and to stop yelling at them. Sometimes, I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It just comes out so naturally, like breathing. I know I have attitude problems, and so do our kids. I have no idea how to set a good example for our kids, when a lot of what they have learned / seen so far has been ingrained in their little heads already.
And then when they see me in a happy mood, they ask “why”? My heart hurts when I hear this question. Why am I happy? This means that my normal mood is grumpy, and down. I gotta learn how to turn my days around more. I gotta smile more. I gotta appreciate life more. Tonight after I made dinner, I was being goofy and playing around with them, and my oldest rolled his eyes and said “I wish you could act normal”. So even when I’m happy and goofing off, they know it’s not normal.
And then, the happiness is over. Like a drug that has left my system, I am left feeling drained and exhausted. It is then that the attitudes start up again from my kids. Like they want the “happy” mom back, but I’m sorry, I can’t stay “happy” 24/7, that would be draining, and I really won’t know who I was then. There is a time and place to be happy, funny, and goofy and there are times were it is necessary to be serious. When the “serious” mom shows her face, the kids rebel and flat out refuse to do anything they are asked to do.
I literally spent 20 minutes going back and forth with my kids refusing to get pajamas on. We set up a rule a long time ago, that whoever gets dressed first in the morning, the other gets in pajamas at night first. Though the downside of this is that I’m not home in the morning to know for sure who woke up and got dressed first. So arguments ensued. I think refusing to do what we ask the first time is them trying to assert power of us as adults.
Now it is 9:34PM and the dishes still aren’t clean. The living room looks like a mess. And I’ve created a bigger mess in the bathroom. We wash the kids underwear on their own in one batch. This means before they get put in to the washing machine, I soak and hand rinse them out first. This way we don’t damage or sink up the washing machine because boys are boys and they stink! So now I have a bathtub of little kid underwear soaking and waiting to be scrubbed. If I don’t rinse them out, nobody will and they will sit there an rot away. The bad thing is, that since the plumbers upgrade the piping, they also updated the bathtub faucet, which changed how the water pressure is at certain temperatures. Hot water gets all the water pressure, where if you want a little water coming out of the tap (or low pressure) the water is ice cold. I rinse underwear in hot water. Now this means massive pressure and bigger messes trying to pretreat little kid mess. This is not fun, and it actually drains the hot water a lot faster.
Anyway, I degrees, I made the kids dinner tonight (pepperoni sandwiches and fruit). Yes that is all they ate, and just getting them to eat that when told it was dinner time was a struggle match. They wanted to eat again again (or have delivered) but I don’t get paid until Friday, and I want to save what we have for necessary items. However, even though there are 2 perfectly good salads in the fridge, I didn’t want something that I had to put together on my own, even if it was mixing a salad kit together. Problem was, that since dishes haven’t been washed for 3 days, there is nothing be enough to mix said salad, let alone eat out of. So I ordered something. As soon as it came, my oldest said “not fair, you get delivery”. Wait, I’m sorry. I didn’t just spend the last half and hour arguing with my mom because I didn’t get to pick the show I wanted to watch, or refuse to get ready for bed when ask to.
When did I get such spoiled bratty kids? However, half the time I blame it on myself. What a vicious circle.
I’m not sure how to be a mom. I know I’ve been a mom for 9 years and some change, but that still doesn’t mean I have adapted my life around my kids. I know this is a horrible thing to think, but it’s true. I look at my kids and think “how can I be the correct person for them?” There has to be some reason they were put into my life. But for the life of me (at least for now) I have no idea why.
I can be so hard on myself. And lately it’s gotten worse. I know it. I can see it. I can feel it. I don’t have that many good days anymore, and most of the time I want to hide away from the world and cry. But I know I have responsibilities. I have little people to take care of and a husband that needs me as well. But most days I think “what about me?” Do I really have to give up all of me and dedicate my life to everyone else? Or can’t I just be me? Is that too selfish of a thought? Its like my mind is going back and forth talking to itself. On one had no, it’s not bad to think & live for your self, on the other hand, yes it is, You had kids and got married for a reason. What was / is that reason? I’m not sure anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids and my husband. And they have brought joy into my life, but …. sometimes I don’t like them. Sometimes I need to get away, but in today’s world, I can’t. Not that I won’t, but that the world actually won’t let me leave. Sure I go to work, but when I get home I have 3.25 hours to do so much around the house that I don’t have any time to escape. There is homework to be done, dishes to clean, rooms to clean, laundry to start, transfer, fold and put away, dinner to cook (of which my kids won’t even touch, so what’s the point), then bed time. There is not enough time or patience in the world to get through all that in 3.25 hours.
And I can’t expect my husband to help. I can’t justify asking him or venting to him because I know he’s been working 12 hours shifts, and getting less sleep than I have due to opposite shifts. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to come home and just relax and take a walk with the kids. But I can’t. I’m stressed that the sink is full of dirty 3 day old dishes. That you can’t see the floor in our room because laundry has piled up. However, the laundry isn’t entirely my fault. Plumbers came in and upgraded our pipes, so we had to take everything out of our hallway closet to get to the water heater. The whole project took 2.5 weeks. The items that were in the hallway closet got put into our room, on my side of the bed. Which of course, was were the husband dumped all the clean clothes that were waiting to be folded. So now that we moved everything back, we can’t see our floor. I shouldn’t stress that I don’t know if homeschooling is working for our kids. But I have this unnatural fear of them being held back because they are not completing their assignments on time. Though with Covid-19, I’m not sure how the schools are going to advance students into the next grade level without testing. I stress about the unknown, and I know I shouldn’t.
I’ve been told many times at work, where I’ve been stationed at for a little over a month now, that I’m doing a stellar job. I’m sorry, no, I’m just doing my job. I’ve only been in the office / manufacturing industry for 10 years now. Go figure, I know how to do the job. I feel like I am twiddling my thumbs too much. Hell, I don’t even know if they will keep me around after my 90 contract is up in July. I don’t even want to think of what would happen if they decide not to keep me on, but my mind goes there as well. Last time I heard that I was doing a great job at catching everything up, I was fired months later. It still bothers me. It’s like a bad break up that I didn’t initiate. I guess I’ll never know the real, true reason behind my firing.
My mind likes to live in the stressed out mode. I can’t seem to dig myself out. I know I need help. But I don’t even know where to start on looking, which is odd, because the research is the easy part. It’s the asking for help that sucks. I don’t meant to be proud about it, but I think it’s something that I witnessed growing up. That you don’t need to ask for help. And to not accept help if it’s offered, unless its the last resort. I think there are a lot of things that I witnessed as a kid and teen growing up that have influenced how I’ve grown into an adult, and not all of them are good ones.
I have anger management issues. I know I do. But how to I get help for that? Where do I go? Is there AA for anger issues? If there were, I’d go in a heartbeat. I want to get better. I want to be happy. I want to be healthy. I want to be there, in the moment. But life isn’t just one giant moment of happiness. Life is a roller-coaster of moments.
Today is mother’s day 2020. I got to sleep for a few hours next to my husband this morning, which is rare. And my boys let me sleep in until 8’ish this morning. Many things have changed, and many have stayed the same. Life these days are different due to the damn Covid-19 virus that has taken over the world. Go figure, a new virus to weed out weak and defenseless. And make the world panic and buy out stupid things. And force the world to re-learn how to wash their hands. All schools have shut down, most businesses have shut down, the world’s unemployment rate has sky rocketed and the state hasn’t been able to catch up on paying out unemployment due to the thousand of cases be claimed each week.
However, the world hasn’t changed much because I still work, luckily after being fired the week before the world went to shit. I got hired at a temp agency a month after I was fired. And I was fired because “I wasn’t a good fit for the company”. And yet the company that I currently temp at is one of their customers. And my old company used to make fun of them, because they were a pain to work with. Some inside knowledge just shouldn’t be shared. I guess I resent them letting me go a lot. I mean I was making a lot of money, and was finally getting into a groove of working there. I can almost pin point the time on where I lost their confidence that I was able to do my job properly. However, I was just caught in the middle of where our suppliers were with material and having to get new certs for material type change due to ISO-900 requirements.
The boys home-school now, which is hard to swing with one parent working swing shift, and the other working day shift. But we make due. I work with each kiddo for an hour at a time when I get home. The only downside is that they will complain and fight doing school work. And when we are done it’s like 6:45 PM and I know the reason why they are cranky. Due to no parent supervision during the day, I doubt they eat anything until I come home, or until daddy wakes up in the afternoon. I feel sorry for them and this time in their childhood. I still see them as little kids, unable to take care of themselves sometimes. But I know that is not true. I know we have taught them to be independent people and how to make themselves something to eat (no oven/ stove top). But I think they get too involved in their video game time playing that they forget to eat.
I know I should be a better mother than this. I envy the mothers/parents I know that are fully active in their children’s lives. I sit back and judge myself against how parents can be in the moment and explore the world with their kids. Social media sucks that in that sense because I’m consistently judging myself against this mothers that I see. But their online world is different then real life. I don’t know what happens behind closed doors, I don’t know what happens off the web. So, I know I shouldn’t compare myself to them, but I do anyway.
I also compare myself to women who look better than I do. I have major self-image issues. I know it’s not as drastic as some, but I feel ugly each day. The rolls in my body won’t go away and every time I get myself motivated to take care of them, I get myself psyched up and then don’t fix them. I get myself all worked up and then eat a pint of ice cream. I get myself all worked up and then I drink 5 cans of soda during a 3 hour period. I don’t get off my fat ass and fix myself. I don’t have self motivation. And then I put myself down in words, like an off comment to my husband, and he walks away. He doesn’t like that I put myself down. The one thing that worked got me into so much debt, I fear going back to it. I mean I know why I went into debt, I wasn’t buying the Pruvit drinks myself, but having them charged to an account through a ex coworker. I felt so much better on Keto, but then it got too expensive, and I ate things I shouldn’t have. I don’t know why I can’t just be comfortable in my own sagging, jiggly, skin. I can’t just look into the mirror and know that I’m pretty. That I have confidence in myself to just be more self-conscious of what I eat and to make better choices.
I have found during this time that I am an introvert. I don’t mind being in my house all day, which leads me to eat whatever I want and sit around the house, doing nothing. However, with children, I don’t get the peace and quiet that I crave so much. I bet my house would be a whole lot cleaner if I was in my house alone. But I clean up one room, and have 5 more rooms to clean up. Plus when I’m done with other rooms, I have to circle back to rooms I’ve already cleaned to reclean them. It’s a never-ending cycle of cleaning. Who knew boys were so messy. Though my husband says that I’m the messy one. Sure, I can see that at times. But at least I know how to put items in the recycling. Instead of putting them in the sink or on the counter right next the recycling. I don’t like doing zoom/ facetime chats with family as I don’t like looking at myself while I talk to others over the phone. I mean, sure, its nice to see other people and make sure they are doing ok, but that means I actually have to look decent when I talk to people via zoom/ facetime. And if I’m not going anywhere, then why look decent?
There have been times that I think i shouldn’t have gone back to work. I was off for one whole month, while actively looking for another job. I know I wouldn’t make a good stay at home mom. i wasn’t made for it. Hats off to mothers who can be stay at home, but 1) I wasn’t made for it and 2) we wouldn’t be able to survive off one income. However, with the world dealing with Covid-19 at the moment and schools being shut down, but not over, this means homeschooling / distance learning for our kids. Had this been set up during the month I was off, I wouldn’t have the choice, but to stay home. However, this was set up right as I was offered a job, and before extra unemployment was being offered by the state. Had I stayed unemployed, I would have been making more on unemployment then while at work. However, I don’t like using state assistance. I never had. I’ve used it before, when in dire situations, but have always worked very hard to get off assistance as fast as I could. I just feel that because the boys only get one hour of school time, and most often do not log into their class google hang out time, they do not get the social interactions that they need to survive as kids. Kids were not made to be cooped up inside all day long. They were made to explore, learn and be one with their community.
I have come to almost the end of my MBA program. I can not believe that I am only 4 classes away from completing my degree. It feels surreal. Our oldest will be 5 years old next month, and will be starting Kindergarten this fall. Has it really been 5 years? Hard to imagine that its has been that long. Along with changes to our living situation and daddy working swing, the boys going to daycare 4 days a week and my schooling almost being completed, this young momma is very overwhelmed with everything. We are still working on potty training both the boys.We have had great success on peeing standing up, it is the pooping and night pees that are still and issue. Our almost 5 year old still wears pull ups to bed, as he does not wake up to use the bathroom on is own during the middle of the night yet.
Behaviors are a different story though. As our lives have been more stressed, not only the schooling, but still living paycheck to paycheck, we are unable to do as many fun actives with the boys as we would like to do.
Oh and with this being our oldest 5th year of life, it also marks 5 years being married, and 5 years since my grandfather passed away.
Many important life events happened 5 years ago. But it will never be the same, and to tell you the truth there are days were I just want to give up and stop trying to be super mom all the time. My children are my life, but then other items come up and I feel like I put them on the back burner, along with my marriage. I’m praying that this feeling will dissipate when classes are over.
Anyway, speaking of classes again, anyone who is readying this, would you mind taking a quick 1-2 minute survey for my MBA capstone project? As this project will take place over 7-8 weeks I am unable to conduct proper market research on certain habits.
I haven’t written in a while. I have had the tendency to just build and build my frustrations inside. And make sure I don’t let it out on the innocent. But it’s been hard lately. Last week was horrible. I went to bed (after putting boys to bed) feeling like the worst mother in the world. I was tired, and cranky and had been literately been screaming inches from their little faces. I am a horrible mother. And for some reason I can’t change that. I only way I can is by walking out and leaving during the time that the husband is home. But this isn’t far on him or the boys. They need to see daddy and mommy together and not separate. I hurts my heart knowing that I just can’t do it anymore on my own. And that’s how it’s felt for a while now. And now I’m throwing in the mix more college. I’ve been accepted into an MBA program (one day a week, after work), and should take about 2 years to complete.
I don’t know. There are so many things I would change about how we live there isn’t enough time to list them all. I just didn’t think my life (our lives) would turn out this way.
Working Mom 